the current is so rapid and sets so strongly into the bend as to require the greatest exertion of the oars to keep the boat in the channel. The river then turns a little to the left, and keeping a W. by N. course for three or four miles, then resumes its general direction, meandering to the southward.
A mile and a half below the bluffs, island No. 35 commences, doubling over Cuming's island, whose lower point is not in sight, being concealed by No. 35. The view of the river and islands from the top of the bluff must be very fine.
No. 35 is three miles long. From the lower end of this island we saw the Third Chickasaw Bluffs bearing east about six or seven miles distant, at the end of a vista formed by the left hand channel of island No. 36, and appearing to be a little higher than the First or Second Bluffs, but without any marked particularity at that distance.[188]
{264} CHAPTER XLV
The Devil's Race-ground—The Devil's Elbow—Swans—Observations
on game—Remarkable situation—Enormous
tree—Join other boats—First settlements after
the wilderness—Chickasaw Bluffs—Fort Pike—Chickasaw
Indians—Fort Pickering.
Rowing into the right hand channel of No. 36, we entered the Devil's Race-ground, as the sound is called between the island and the main, from the number of snags and sawyers in it, and the current setting strongly on the island, which renders it necessary to use the oars with continued exertion, by dint of which we got safely through this dangerous passage of three miles, leaving several newly deserted Indian camps on the right. At the end of the Devil's Race-ground the river turns from S. W. by W. to N. N. W. and here
